Save the Brain!

BY RUSS WELLEN07.14.2005 05:38 | DISPATCHES

From the Dossier of an Ex-Patriot.

The sight of reporters like NBC’s David “This is ridiculous, Scott” Gregory shaking off the voodoo spell Karl Rove had cast on them has been eliciting be-still-my-beating-heart reactions from political observers. But while “It’s alive!” is all well and good, it’s time to shrink back into the shadows.

What? Just when we’ve got Good Dog Karl cornered?

Yes. Rove is more valuable where he is: as the indisputable mastermind of George Bush’s ascent –- and descent. It began with the Plame name game he was playing two years ago and continued with the 2004 presidential election, in which he prevailed thanks to the Swift Boat Veterans, his final success. But his failure to wean Bush from his desperate, wheedling, decidedly unpresidential stump style boded ill for the next presidential term.

Since then, from hitching the administration’s wagon to that epic national bummer, the Schiavo affair, to his part in bankruptcy reform, to exiling Bush to sixty days in the wilderness hyping Social Insecurity, it’s obvious Rove has lost his magic touch.

One can only conclude that along with Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, and Wolfowitz, he has become overconfident and overplayed his hand. Insulated, his only contact with the public is through polls.

Jeopardizing national security by playing fast and loose with a CIA employee’s identity aside, their flagging numbers alone should be grounds for firing an over-the-hill political consultant.

Thus, to ensure all the players are in place for the Bush administration’s final fall, retain Bush’s Brain.